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Font and Memory

Purpose

To determine whether a serif font, such as Times New Roman or a sans serif font, such as Arial is more easily remembered.

Additional information

You will need access to a computer with a word processor such as Microsoft Word and a printer.

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Required materials

Computer

Printer

Paper

Scissors

Timer

Journal or logbook

10 volunteer students, including 5 girls and 5 boys

Estimated Experiment Time

About one day

Step-By-Step Procedure

1. Begin by typing several small and easy to remember sentences, such as “The dog ran home.” Type the sentences in two separate types of font – one in a serif type font and the other in a sans serif type font. You will need to have completely different sentences – no duplicates. Set the font size at about 14 and leave enough space in between for you to cut out each sentence and use it like a flashcard.

2. Type out several longer sentences as well, such as “Johnny came home from school and ate dinner with his family.”

3. Last, you will want to type out several very long sentences, such as “It was the middle of December and the town had just had a snow blizzard. The school bus was late because of the ice and snow that was on the road.”

4. Cut out all sentences.

5. Approach each volunteer student and have him or her look at one of the smallest sentences for 5 seconds. Then ask them to repeat the sentence back to you. Record how easily he or she remembered the sentence and whether it was in a serif or sans serif font.

6. Have the student look at another small sentence in the other type of font for 5 seconds and record how easily the student remembered the sentence.

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 with each sentence size (small, medium and large) and in each type of font with each student. Remember to record all the results!

8. Graph the results to determine which type of font is most easily remembered

Note

Measure how easily each sentence was remembered by noting how many words out of the total number of words in the sentence were remembered.

Observation

Students won’t be able to remember every word in the sentences of either font, especially the longest sentences. Remember that this will be one of your variables.

Result

The graph should show which type of font is most easily remembered by students.

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